.\"***************************************************************************
-.\" Copyright (c) 1998-2016,2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. *
+.\" Copyright (c) 1998-2018,2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. *
.\" *
.\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a *
.\" copy of this software and associated documentation files (the *
.\" authorization. *
.\"***************************************************************************
.\"
-.\" $Id: tic.1m,v 1.63 2017/01/14 19:50:09 tom Exp $
+.\" $Id: tic.1m,v 1.74 2019/07/20 17:57:09 tom Exp $
.TH @TIC@ 1M ""
.ie \n(.g .ds `` \(lq
.el .ds `` ``
.ds n 5
.ds d @TERMINFO@
.de bP
-.IP \(bu 4
+.ie n .IP \(bu 4
+.el .IP \(bu 2
..
.SH NAME
\fB@TIC@\fR \- the \fIterminfo\fR entry-description compiler
.RE
.TP
\fB\-c\fR
-tells \fB@TIC@\fP to only check \fIfile\fR for errors, including syntax problems and
-bad use links.
+tells \fB@TIC@\fP to only check \fIfile\fR for errors,
+including syntax problems and bad use-links.
If you specify \fB\-C\fR (\fB\-I\fR) with this option, the code
will print warnings about entries which, after use resolution, are more than
1023 (4096) bytes long.
Otherwise no output will be generated for it.
The option value is interpreted as a file containing the list if it
contains a '/'.
-(Note: depending on how tic was compiled, this option may require \fB\-I\fR or \fB\-C\fR.)
+(Note: depending on how @TIC@ was compiled,
+this option may require \fB\-I\fR or \fB\-C\fR.)
.TP
\fB\-f\fR
Display complex terminfo strings which contain if/then/else/endif expressions
the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and outright broken ports like AIX 3.x
that have their own extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI.
Available subsets
-are "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD" and "AIX"; see \fBterminfo\fR(\*n) for details.
+are "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD" and "AIX";
+see \fBterminfo\fR(\*n) for details.
.TP
\fB\-r\fR
Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining tc capabilities) even
\fB\-W\fR
By itself, the \fB\-w\fP option will not force long strings to be wrapped.
Use the \fB\-W\fP option to do this.
+.IP
+If you specify both \fB\-f\fP and \fB\-W\fP options,
+the latter is ignored when \fB\-f\fP has already split the line.
.TP
\fB\-w\fR\fIn\fR
specifies the width of the output.
If it is omitted, it defaults to 60.
.TP
\fB\-x\fR
-Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined.
+Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined (see \fBuser_caps(\*n)\fP).
That is, if you supply a capability name which \fB@TIC@\fP does not recognize,
it will infer its type (boolean, number or string) from the syntax and
make an extended table entry for that.
exceed 512 bytes.
Terminal names exceeding the maximum alias length
(32 characters on systems with long filenames, 14 characters otherwise)
-will be truncated to the maximum alias length and a warning message will be printed.
-.SH COMPATIBILITY
+will be truncated to the maximum alias length
+and a warning message will be printed.
+.SH HISTORY
+.PP
+System V Release 2 provided a \fBtic\fP utility.
+It accepted a single option: \fB\-v\fP (optionally followed by a number).
+According to Ross Ridge's comment in \fImytinfo\fP,
+this version of \fBtic\fP was
+unable to represent cancelled capabilities.
+.PP
+System V Release 3 provided a different \fBtic\fP utility,
+written by Pavel Curtis,
+(originally named \*(``compile\*('' in \fIpcurses\fP).
+This added an option \fB\-c\fP to check the file for
+errors, with the caveat that errors in \*(``use=\*('' links
+would not be reported.
+System V Release 3 documented a few warning messages which
+did not appear in \fIpcurses\fP.
+While the program itself was changed little as development
+continued with System V Release 4,
+the table of capabilities grew from 180 (\fIpcurses\fP) to 464 (Solaris).
+.PP
+In early development of ncurses (1993),
+Zeyd Ben-Halim used the table from \fImytinfo\fP to
+extend the \fIpcurses\fP table to 469 capabilities
+(456 matched SVr4, 8 were only in SVr4, 13 were not in SVr4).
+Of those 13, 11 were ultimately discarded
+(perhaps to match the draft of X/Open Curses).
+The exceptions were
+\fBmemory_lock_above\fP and
+\fBmemory_unlock\fP (see \fBuser_caps\fP(5)).
+.PP
+Eric Raymond incorporated parts of \fImytinfo\fP into ncurses
+to implement the termcap-to-terminfo source conversion,
+and extended that to begin development of
+the corresponding terminfo-to-termcap source conversion,
+Thomas Dickey completed that development over the course of several years.
+.PP
+In 1999, Thomas Dickey added the \fB\-x\fP option
+to support user-defined capabilities.
+.PP
+In 2010, Roy Marples provided a \fBtic\fP program
+and terminfo library for NetBSD.
+This implementation adapts several features from ncurses,
+including \fB@TIC@\fP's \fB\-x\fP option.
+.PP
+The \fB\-c\fP option tells \fB@TIC@\fP to check for problems in the
+terminfo source file.
+Continued development provides additional checks:
+.bP
+\fIpcurses\fP had 8 warnings
+.bP
+ncurses in 1996 had 16 warnings
+.bP
+Solaris (SVr4) curses has 28 warnings
+.bP
+NetBSD tic in 2019 has 19 warnings.
+.bP
+ncurses in 2019 has 96 warnings
+.PP
+The checking done in ncurses' \fB@TIC@\fP helps with the conversion to
+termcap, as well as pointing out errors and inconsistencies.
+It is also used to ensure consistency with the user-defined capabilities.
+There are 527 distinct capabilities in ncurses' terminal database;
+128 of those are user-defined.
+.SH PORTABILITY
+.PP
+X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009) provides a brief description of \fBtic\fP.
+It lists one option: \fB\-c\fP.
+The omission of \fB\-v\fP is unexpected.
+The change history states that the description is derived from True64 UNIX.
+According to its manual pages, that system also supported the \fB\-v\fP option.
+.PP
+Shortly after Issue 7 was released, Tru64 was discontinued.
+As of 2019, the surviving implementations of \fBtic\fP
+are SVr4 (AIX, HP-UX and Solaris),
+ncurses
+and NetBSD curses.
+.PP
+The X/Open rationale states that some implementations of \fBtic\fP
+read terminal descriptions from the standard input if the \fIfile\fP
+parameter is omitted.
+None of these implementations do that.
+Further, it comments that some may choose to read from \*(''./terminfo.src\*(''
+but that is obsolescent behavior from SVr2,
+and is not (for example) a documented feature of SVr3.
+.SS COMPATIBILITY
There is some evidence that historic \fB@TIC@\fR implementations treated
description fields with no whitespace in them as additional aliases or
short names.
This \fB@TIC@\fR does not do that, but it does warn when
description fields may be treated that way and check them for dangerous
characters.
-.SH EXTENSIONS
+.SS EXTENSIONS
Unlike the SVr4 \fB@TIC@\fR command, this implementation can actually
compile termcap sources.
In fact, entries in terminfo and termcap syntax can
\fB\-x\fR
options
are not supported under SVr4.
-The SVr4 \fB\-c\fR mode does not report bad use links.
+The SVr4 \fB\-c\fR mode does not report bad \*(``use=\*('' links.
.PP
System V does not compile entries to or read entries from your
\fI$HOME/.terminfo\fR database unless TERMINFO is explicitly set to it.
\fBcurses\fR(3X),
\fBterm\fR(\*n).
\fBterminfo\fR(\*n).
+\fBuser_caps\fR(\*n).
.PP
This describes \fBncurses\fR
version @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCURSES_MINOR@ (patch @NCURSES_PATCH@).
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff